Republicans will give in to President Obama — reluctantly, kicking-and-screamingly — on the top tax bracket, but they want substantive entitlement reforms in return, and they want bipartisan, Bowles-ian cover as part of the bargain. The outline of a deficit-reduction plan offered by House Republican leaders yesterday in the form of a letter to the president was vague about revenue: a headline number of $800 billion over 10 years was put on the table, but the letter did not specify which deductions and loopholes are on the chopping block. Because that’s not the point. Obama will get his revenue. … Roughly $1 trillion in new revenue for roughly $1 trillion in spending cuts, including modest structural reforms to Social Security and Medicare, is a realistic target to shoot for, all things considered.

To some readers it will feel that Scruton often wanders far from the most heated environmental debates of our day, but this is intentional on his part. He wants to step back from judgments on particular issues in order to train his readers in usefully conservative thought. … The more distant and abstract the place from which environmental initiatives come, Scruton argues, the less purchase they have on the human beings who are acting in ways that affect our planet.

So what? Well, marriage is good for individuals, good for the children they produce, and good for society. Study after study has confirmed this wisdom at the heart of most religions. [Jonathan] Last points out, though, that there will be political consequences to the rapid decline of marriage-and-family culture. People who aren’t married tend to be more focused on the here and now, and not thinking of the future, and the obligations to stewardship future-mindedness imposes. Also, if they don’t have families to help take care of them, the state has to step in.

Consider for a moment the economics of Iron Dome. There are currently five operational units that are towed to the sites where are they deployed. They have cost $50 million each. Israel eventually wants to deploy thirteen of them, all paid for by the US taxpayer. In the recent fighting, the Iron Dome units fired an estimated $25-30 million worth of anti-missile missiles, with a per unit cost of $50,000. The Gazan weapons were largely homemade though sometimes using Iranian avionic parts smuggled in and had no infrastructure costs for the launchers. Most were so-called Qassams, lacking sophistication but costing about $100 to construct. So on a one-to-one basis it costs $50,000 per missile fired from a $50 million launcher to defeat something that might cost $100 to build.

If one is trapped in a cubicle for nine hours a day, it is easy enough to see how escapist entertainment like this would serve as a diversion. Those who watch “Two and a Half Men” know–from the promos, the opening scene, and whatever else–that the sordidness of the show is part of the package, and it is a sordidness that is part of the culture now.